


Playing House

by missbeizy



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M, RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 09:30:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2768171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missbeizy/pseuds/missbeizy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A week alone on South Island means more than just surfing and tequila—surprisingly enough!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Playing House

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is inspired by this Billy quote:
> 
> "In fact, there's a great tape that no one has seen, that's very hilarious, that I have here. Orlando bought a video camera while he was there, and me and Dom stole it when we were going to South Island. What happened was, they were filming Frodo and Sam's story in the South Islands somewhere, and they put everyone up in hotels while they were doing this, but they didn't have any wet weather cover for Frodo and Sam. So if it started to rain and they couldn't film Frodo and Sam, there was nothing to film, you know? And you can't have that. You can't have a day without filming, so they set an inside set, which was a Merry and Pippin set. So they said to us, "'It's too far to fly you every day, so you guys will have to come down, but it means that you probably won't be working.' They said, 'So rather than put you up in the hotel, we'll get you a nice house down here, while you're here.' It was just in a small place in the South Island. We thought, 'Yeah, great! We'll just hang out and watch movies or whatever.' So we stole Orlando's camera, and there is a tape of that week, of me and Dom sharing a house together, which must make it onto a DVD at sometime."

"We have our own indoor set?" The whisper was urgent and curious, and right against my ear.

"Fantastic!" I said into the phone.

"Will there be beer there? And women?" Billy asked, hopping up on the balls of his feet and tugging the phone cord just to annoy me.

I chuckled, punched his arm, and he fell back dramatically in a flourish of feigned injury while I tried to finish my conversation with the domestic affairs rep on the line. 

It had just been explained to me that, while Elijah and Sean Astin were filming some Frodo/Sam scenes on South Island, so would Billy and I be filming Merry/Pippin scenes in about the same location. Because of the unpredictable weather and the location being just a bit too far from Wellington, they had built an inside set for our respective pairs. We couldn't been flown or driven easily each morning, and since we might not even be able to work every day, the nice people down on South Island had a house set aside for me and Billy.

A house. For me and Billy. These people didn't really know us, did they?

"Alright. Yes, that's fine." I covered the mouthpiece of the phone, turning to Billy. "We'll need about six cases of—" Listened to the voice on the other line again. "Oh. Ah. Yes, right. No guests. A private residence, then? Of course." I tilted my head back at Billy, shaking my head. "Make that four cases."

"Right then!" he shot back, already halfway dived into the closet and then a moment later dragging out huge armfuls of clothes which were dumped unceremoniously on the bed.

After ringing off, I collapsed laughing. This was too much. I mean, if they could only know how funny it sound, all, "You and Mr. Boyd will have lodgings for a week in a pretty isolated coastal town called Milford Sound," and on and on, considering the madness the two of us would probably create when left to our own devices.

"Coastal, my friend!" I sang-sung as I helped him sort out the tangled mess of silk, cotton, and wool on his bed.

"Surfing," he chimed in, snagging some jeans and tossing them into what looked like a "take with me" pile.

"What're we filming there, then?"

"Does it matter?" I said, snickering and flopping over what seemed to be the "leave in Wellington" pile of clothes.

"A bit, you lout. Get offa my clothes."

I rolled to the left. "Fangorn."

"Where're Lij and Sean going to be?"

"Uh. The Misty Mountains?"

He chucked a kilt at me, and it tented over my head, leaving me in navy-blue darkness.

"Wasn't paying attention really. Ehm. Haast? Something like that."

"We can visit them, then, yeah?"

I took the kilt off my head, tossed it back at him, and raised an eyebrow. "Not really. Something like seven hundred kilometers difference."

"Christ. When they say isolated—"

"They mean isolated. But the beach, Bills. It's going to be wild."

"Better search my car for the wetsuits."

"Under the bodies of the people you forgot you left in there, and just to the right of the balls of twine—"

Another article of clothing swatted me full in the face and I grinned, lying back against the pillows while flicking it off.

"Certainly not anywhere near the air-fresheners, because, oh, bless me—there aren't any!"

"Are you dishonoring my car, Dominic? Because that's a challenge."

I waggled my eyebrows, grabbing up a pair of pants and swatting him with one pant leg.

"Bring it on, sheep-shagger."

And then he flying tackled me off the bed, preparing to strangle me with a sweater's long, clinging arms, but all I saw was him, and all I thought of was the week ahead.

 

Okay. So, it was exciting beyond belief for about an hour. But now it's all set and we're packed and we've already said goodbye to the boys and the Wellington crew. And it's kind of just hitting me now, after more talks with the South Island folks over the phone, just how alone Billy and I are going to be.

Itinerary's all set—surfing, snorkeling, and hiking. We've got enough CDs and DVDs to last us until Armageddon or until Australia slides into New Zealand because of some continental shift in the Earth's crust and mashes us to Hobbit hotcakes. Which sounds funny on paper, but man—

Right. On topic. Of course I am. I ramble when I'm nervous, don't I, then?

Billy breezed through round about an hour ago, glowing and red in the face because he managed to filch Orli's video-camera—and he plans to chart our manly outing on film with it so that one day our grandkids can watch us being stupid and I dunno, learn something about life, or what have you. I think he just really liked stealing Orli's camera. Sure hope the Elf doesn't notice it's gone, because we've still got twelve hours in Wellington, and man, that'd be one awesome showdown—probably not a good idea, though, since bruising and swelling does not a happy make-up crew make.

Hm. Avoiding the issue again. But yeah. Billy, me. Alone. I mean, fucking, ALONE, for a week. And if it rains during an outdoor shoot? Alone through the whole day. Very. Alone.

Think I'm worried because the funny thing that happens when me and Bill are alone for a long time is that I start to let down my outward persona, and kind of like, let the inner me just hang all out. Worried that, if that goes on for nights on end, that he might notice that I'm not all laughs and pranks and insanity. That something drippy and squishy for him keeps turning figure eights in my chest.

Worried about acting TOO happy that I've got him to myself for a week. Worried about saying something bloody stupid when we get drunk. Worried that the ocean and the together time will go right to my dumb head.

Well, fuck all. Best get on with it.

 

The helicopter had been gone for about two hours. It took the crew and all vestiges of the outside world with it. I finished emptying the contents of my luggage, which was immense for such a short trip. The rent-a-car with the bigger things like surfboards would be driven up for us later that evening.

The house was wonderful; all whites and greens and browns, split-level, lofty ceilings. But it was the outside that caught our attention before anything else; wide open space for miles, ringed fairly by rocky hills along the lip of the bowl that served as the three-hundred-and-sixty degree horizon. The grass was fair and light, hinting at slightly sandy soil. The beach itself was no more than a couple miles walk to the east; a well-beaten path connected the shore and the property.

And we went mad going over the fields, messing around, and breaking in the camera. It became clear right from the off that Billy was the cameraman. He liked the thing, obviously, liked seeing our world through it. 

"It's like reality through a filter that just doesn't restrict anything around it," he commented oddly.

I just snorted and stole it from him and dashed for the house like someone had lit a fire under my arse. We chased each other around the house, then, claiming this room and that, swiping the camera back and forth while filming, though we both knew full well that we'd end up sharing the same rooms at the same times. We stocked our private stash of liquor in the freshly scrubbed icebox.

We put the telly and its accessories through a quick check, messed with the Playstation, and altogether approved the electronic accommodations. In the bedroom, I helped Billy unpack what had become our shared CD case; the CDs we agreed were necessary when traveling and quite cool besides.

I tried to ignore how full and good it felt, doing this stupid domestic unpacking shit with him. Tried to ignore the feeling of mutuality; how all his stuff was sort of my stuff or at least I had borrowed and used most of it so much that it seemed like that. Just wanted to have a good time, was all. 

I was flipping through a book that fell to the bottom of my bag, muttering because the bookmark fell out and I'd lost my page. I felt the lens of the camera steady on me and I looked up to see Billy, just flatly filming me.

"Can I help you?"

"Do something interesting for the camera."

I flipped the bird at the glaring lens.

He snickered. "Come on!"

"Like what?"

"Dunno. Tell a story."

"Once, there was a very, very annoying Scotsman, who would've been such a lovely friend if he wasn't bloody obnoxious, but his British friend was oh-so-patient and humble that—"

"Your stories are crap."

"I'm feeling the love, Pip."

The camera lowered and he was grinning that mad, Billy grin of his, upper lip drawn up and eyes wildly at the ceiling, tossing.

"You like that camera a bit too much, I think."

He fell on the bed, setting the camera on the mattress next to him. "Which room do you want?"

Fishing my bookmark out from between two CDs, I smiled triumphantly, popped it into the book, and then realized Billy had said something.

"Mm?"

"Asked which room you wanted."

I hesitated, for some strange reason. It didn't seem to make sense for us to use two separate bedrooms when we were the only people in the house. Why even bother? Bed was big enough. Bed was…yeah. Yeah. Maybe best if we did have separate rooms. Still, none of my thinking made it to my mouth.

"Don't we just share this room?" I muttered, so casual that I mentally high-fived myself.

"Alright," he agreed, just as casually, eyes on the back of a CD case. "Guess it is kind of daft. It's just us two."

Just us two. Huh.

 

He's cooking something downstairs in the kitchen and I've just showered, so I figured I'd sit down and write. South Island is…well. There's something about it that makes me feel like I'm in a country within a country. Hell, I know it's an entirely different place than the North Island, but this isolation is just weird.

For the few hours it took us to settle in, I almost forgot why we were here. It took a split-second of thought to remind myself that we were here to film Fangorn scenes. That I had dialogue to remember. That we weren't just on some mad all-fees paid holiday. 

The truth of that slid off me, especially when Billy changed into a decent pair of linen pants and a nice shirt, and popped some of our good stuff and filled the glasses and then wandered the perimeter of the house with me on his left-hand side and the camera in his right hand.

He suggested walking to the beach, but I felt like sticking to the house. So we went back inside, finished off the bottle, got warm and fuzzy enough for everything to be funny, and sorted through our DVDs.

One movie later, hunger set in, and he offered to look through the groceries that had been stocked for us. So I said I'd go wash off the clinging salty-dirt that seemed to lace the ground as well as the air here.

It's funny, how it gets, when we're alone. There are these quiet moments, these long stretched shadowy spaces, like putty between two grubby pairs of fingers. And in those silences, all is right with the world, and the breezes coming off the water pet you in a welcoming sort of way and you close your eyes.

And a heartbeat turns the moment over, cooks it on its other side, and eventually he or I start talking again. It cycles like that, conscious and unconscious moments flipping and flopping gracefully. Sharing space. Making room. Changing things? Well, maybe. Maybe for me. But for him? That's just another shadowy space, right there. One that I don't have a grip on at all.

 

"Give it an hour. When I'm positive food poisoning hasn't set it, I'll sprinkle you generously with compliments," I announced, leaning back in my chair, our table full of empty plates.

He smirked, threw a wadded up napkin at me, and took a swig from his beer bottle.

"Of course," he drawled, dragging his accent out in a way that made my cheeks warm.

"Can you bake, d'you think?"

He laughed, folded his hands behind his head, and the kitchen light played with the shades of black on his shirt. "Much better than you, my friend."

"Wasn't my fault the oven broke and I was left with a bowl of cake batter!"

"Oh, but it was your fault that you then ate the batter, and came moaning over to my place like a wee boy with a very bad tummy-ache."

I grinned, recalling the afternoon, and how I had whined and flopped on his lap and he had pet my hair playfully for a few seconds before searching out some nasty something or other for me to swallow down.

We lapsed into comfortable silence; the clink of beer bottles on the tabletop the only thing that broke up the minutes. After a time, I got up and started taking the plates into the kitchen. Filled the sink with them, too lazy to put them in the dishwasher and then figure out how it worked.

Billy showered while I puttered around my remaining bags and unpacked what I thought I'd need for tomorrow. I put my set of the Lord of the Rings books out, along with some comfortable clothes to change into at the make-up trailer, and snagged a few CDs in case we had time to kill on set.

He was showered and changed by the time I ventured back towards the bedroom. Misty warmth from the bathroom filled the place, and the light warmth from outside was almost similar. It sort of made me dizzy for a moment. In shorts and an undershirt, he flopped on the bed.

I lay down on the other side of the bed, putting the requisite distance between us, and grabbed my copy of The Two Towers. I tried to read, but the words became one long string of unreadable drivel in front of my eyes. I was a little tired, but didn't want the day to be over at the same time. And Billy's presence just a couple feet away nagged at me.

Sure, we'd shared a bed plenty, but never like this. Never planned. Never previously agreed upon bed sharing. 

"What part're you looking at?"

"Oh. Um, trying to find the description of Fangorn Forest again," I lied.

"Not a bad idea," he replied absently, his own eyes skimming the contents of a book. 

"Just let me know when you want to sleep, mmm?" he added, laying the book on his chest and looking over at me. It was frighteningly intimate, the way he looked like a man playing husband with the blankets around his waist, the light coming sideways through over his profile, and the easy smile on his lips. And I thought to myself: This is no different than how his wife will one day see him. And then I cringed and tried not to think about the cringing.

I nodded, closed the book, and sank deeper into the blankets. He flicked the light off a minute later. The bed squeaked and shifted for twenty minutes before I lost my battle to stay awake, my eyes slipping shut in spite of the tension in my limbs.

 

"'S'bloody hot in here."

"It is," I agreed, slumping further in the rickety folding chair and careful at the last second not to squish my Merry wig. We were on the indoor set, filming dialogue, mostly, but since close-ups and other shots could be achieved without a backdrop, we needed full costuming.

"And it's so nice outside," Billy observed, swinging his hobbit feet against the legs of his chair, the Pippin curls catching his eyelashes before he pushed them back. "Definitely beach after this. Yeah?"

"Mm," I agreed again, nodding. "Definitely."

I tapped my Hobbit feet incessantly against the floor, sat up straight, and looked over to where the crew was setting up another shot. Felt all antsy inside, wanting to be doing something more exciting, like getting the shot, or saying something as Merry, or driving in Billy's car, with the air-conditioning that only worked on one side, and the backseat so full of random items that you could only fit a third passenger if you were lucky and they were very tiny. 

"Bet I could reach the top branch of that tree prop faster than you," I said, pointing.

"Could not," he protested, giving a derisive scoff.

I hopped up, smoothing my cloak. "On three."

He grinned and took up a running position.

 

We reached the beach just around late afternoon. The trunk of Billy's car was piled high with wetsuits, swimming trunks, and masks and snorkels. At first we just stood around the beach, which was surprisingly not overflowing with people, and tossed around a football. He brought out the camera and we filmed a bunch between the two of us.

The breeze was light and glorious on my skin, and after a day of being stuck under hot lights and wool, it felt perfect to be outside again. For the most part, we went unnoticed. Don't think there was too much publicity about our being in this specific part of New Zealand. 

A couple girls came up and chatted with mostly Billy for a few minutes, exchanging giggles and the ever popular "I knew it was you!" that we were used to hearing. I pretended to be interested in them the way Billy was, laying on the accent real thick and lightly patting their arms and shoulders. They got all giggly when Billy flirted through the camera lens at them.

He looked ready to invite them up to the house, but changed his mind. We'd probably get in deep shite if we started bringing people back. Two girls could become twelve people if you didn't watch it.

They went off after a bit, and he suggested breaking out the surfboards. I nodded, smiling, feeling easier now that I had him back to myself. We dropped the boards on the sand and searched out a place to change into the suits. Bit of a squick getting into mine, but eventually I was back out on the sand, the thick rubber shaping all of me neatly.

He sneaked up behind me, pounced my back and caused me to stagger forward just before balancing out. I laughed, and my hands flew to his arms that practically locked around my neck.

"Reflexes a bit slow for a strapping lad your age, eh?" he breathed near my ear, unwrapping from me and dropping to his own feet.

I punched him in the side, knuckles lightly grazing rubber, and paused to look at him all shapely in his suit. "Feck off, cunt."

"Ach! I've got such rude friends, I'm telling you…"

"Let's surf, Boyd," I retorted, swatting his backside broadly with my surfboard and then taking off for the water.

Everything after that was lost to the sensation of being in the ocean. So many times later I'd try to describe what it felt like, in interviews as well as to friends, but the words never really come out the way I want them to. It's being a part of something so ancient and so perfected and so alive. Something that has always and will always be there, no matter what happens to humans or animals or plants. It's this eternal, massive thing, and to be a part of it, even for a little while, even for a made-up sport, is something that I'll never be able to live without.

And for some silly reason, I think Billy understood how it affected me. It figured.

Afterwards, drained, salty, and completely sore, we camped on the sand, just sort of watching the sunset, and it was very quiet. Yeah. That's the word: quiet. It was quiet between us and also inside me, and quiet all over like the sand on the ground we sat on.

Then there was the sunset, of course, which all by itself was enough to make me feel wide and deep in the center of myself. By that time everyone had cleared out and it was just us two and maybe a couple other pairs of people scattered along the sloping sandy rises of the shore.

Was having one of those moments again; one of those stretched and slippery silences. But also another moment on top of that: one of those remembering just where we are and what we're doing and how amazingly privileged we are moments. One hell of a combination! Makes a bloke want to cry, really. Well. Maybe not cry. Does get your throat all funny, though.

He closed his eyes and put his chin on folded arms. I looked at him, taking the moment when he couldn't look back and putting it to my own use. 

And it went:

The breeze coming off the water lifted his thin hair a little, and the profile of his nose and mouth (that heart-shaped, dramatically boyish mouth) and his rubber-sheathed, relaxed body started something tiny and hot in my belly.

Further: thinking of his smile and the way it was so comically thin and cut high into his cheeks. So bloody adorable that you wanted to touch his face when he smiled, just to feel the curve of it, as if the happiness and liveliness behind it would be absorbed through your skin and then you'd know what it was like to share a piece of him.

Further still: and that happiness in him, flagged by the humor that was so much like mine and yet had a cadence that I didn't think I had achieved just yet, all lovely and perfect and side-splittingly pleasurable. Made you want to be happy all the time, thinking of it. Thinking of how it wrapped you up when you were round him and how it never seemed to be just that way with anything else.

And again: and it really isn't just that way with anyone else, is it? Not since we got here. Not since he walked into the scripting office in Wellington and smiled at you and cracked a joke about your accent and your messy hair and how you looked hung-over. Not since he killed you over and over in sword training and kept track of how many times just to poke fun at you later. Not since he crashed your flat every other night just because he got lonely and antsy at his place, all alone.

So there it is, then, that it's progressed. That it was something now that it wasn't in the beginning. Okay.

I love him, don't I?

Pretty simple words for such a spiky subject; but it most definitely fit the bill.

 

He's asleep. I pretended to go to bed, too, just so he wouldn't ask me why I was staying up. I'm right tired, but I need to clear my head of these thoughts, and the best way of going about that seems to be writing. God save me if he ever finds this bloody journal.

It makes sense now. All the strange possessive feelings. All the fixation on his parts and personality. All the bragging about how close we are. How we think we're better mates than any of the others, though that's probably not true. 

Elijah tried to explain to me one night why him and the other American actors first found us Brits so odd—with all the affection and the like. At first I didn't get it, really, while he went on about how we hug and snuggle and kiss jokingly and think nothing of it. What's that got to do with anything? I thought. It's just a brotherly thing.

But its tinged round the edges with something burnt and sensitive, I think, with Billy. And that's what makes it different. Sure, I can smack any of the boys with a kiss or a cuddle and it's all in good fun. And in the beginning, Billy got the same treatment. But for the longest time, the one thing that has been different is how we are when we're alone. 

I sort of hit on it before, with the silence thing. With the inner me coming out thing. But it's also a physical thing. Which, I guess, I wasn't registering because I'm not suppose to register physical thoughts about Billy. I mean, sure, around other people, it's all fine and jolly—because I'm Dom, and that's what Dom does, and DominicBilly works that way. 

Not when they're alone, they don't. 

If you think about it, it makes sense. You and your best mate act a certain way round other mates just the way you and your girlfriend act one way round a crowd and one way when you're at home alone. Different kind of relationship, really, but same dynamic. 

When you're that close to someone—when the two of you know each other that well—I mean, it can't be the same, public and private, can it? You can't always be that public person. You need private moments. And the private moments are more likely to happen when you're alone with that person than when you're out with them and a bunch of other people.

And when that happens all the time, that person gets to see a whole other side of you, and your friendship changes because of it. You start to have those deep, silent moments. Your throat starts to get funny.

…But do you fall in love?

 

Well, as I always say: when in doubt and mildly peeved at the fact, get piss-drunk. Brilliant idea, then! So, the next day after doing a bunch of annoying running wide shots, I dragged Billy home, covered the table with glasses and liquor, and suggested a round of drunken Playstation.

I wanted to be plastered and uncoordinated. Which was kind of dumb, of course, but give a guy a bit of leave to wallow, then, eh? 'S'not every day a bloke realizes he may be slightly just a teensy bit in love with his best mate.

Billy went through God only knows how many shots of malt whiskey before he moved onto the next type of drink. I don't think we got through one session of the game we were trying to play, if we managed to get to the "Play" screen at all. Alright. I don't even think we knew what game we were playing.

All I remember is that the controller was fuckin' hilarious. Something about the buttons and making them work and the blips on the screen kept making us crack the hell up. Right, then: pause, get some more bottles, try again. We'll get this eventually!

'Course, we didn't. The next thing I remembered was waking up. I disturbed half a dozen glass bottles just rolling over. The television was still on; the game paused on its start-up screen. I was wearing my jeans and shirt from last night, my limbs were numb from sleeping at an odd angle, and the room was completely trashed. 

Billy was sleeping similarly, sprawled with one leg on the couch, but otherwise draped down on the floor. I snickered at his posture, sat up, and knocked over another few empty bottles. 

Sitting up? Bad idea. I put a hand to my head and went still, taking in a deep breath and then exhaling. All the contents of my stomach and head seemed like they'd been liquefied, boiled, frozen, and then melted and poured back into my body.

The glaring clock just under the Playstation console read half past ten. My eyes nearly bugged out of my skull when I realized we had an eight o'clock call that morning. Stumbling and suppressing the urge to vomit, I managed to find the phone in the kitchen. The answering machine was blinking red. 

We're fired, I thought in a mental monotone. I hit the play button.

"Sorry 'bout the short notice. We're having some trouble with the equipment and it looks like pretty bad rain today. Looks like you've got the day off, Dom, Billy. Same time tomorrow, but if that changes, we'll let you know."

"Oh, thank God," I groaned, and fell right over on my backside, sprawling out on the cold floor, relief surging through me.

Billy stumbled into the hall, bumped the far wall, two-stepped back to get on track, and rubbed his face, which sent him careening into the other wall. He bounced back again and lurched forward, feeling for furniture to keep him on track.

"Fucktimeissit?"

My place on the floor didn't seem to interest him. He fell down beside me, laying his head on my stomach and clinging to me where he could.

"Almost time for second breakfast," I grumbled.

"Oh, no. Weren't we supposta…"

"Yeah."

"Fuck," he said, though it sounded more like "fook," and then he buried his face in my t-shirt.

Note to self: get Billy drunk again, soon.

"Got a message on the machine," I said, pointing up to the table. "No shooting today."

He lifted his head, looking bleary-eyed, his left eye closing just a second before his right.

"Eh? That so, then? Oh, yeah, oh, thank heaven," he breathed, slumping into me again.

"You hungry?" I asked.

His only response was a "you're fucking kidding me" type of groan against my side. His fingers groped down my hip in an attempt to get leverage to lift himself up. It was weird, feeling a firm, honest touch instead of a quick, joking one. 

"Me either," I agreed.

"Why're you on the floor?"

"Can't stand up. Gonna be sick."

"Yeah. Gotcha there," he said, falling half on top of me in his attempt to sit up. "Alright. Nice and slow and we're going to go back to bed, Dommie, and sleep this off 'cause I don't think I can—" He flopped on top of me again, whimpering. "How much did we drink, man?"

"Quarter of the lot, at least," I said back, thinking that I had obviously drank slightly less than him, which was strange. He rubbed his cheek against my chest, in a far-too-familiar way, and closed his eyes.

"Comfortable here," he murmured.

"Billy, my leg's asleep, can you move—"

"Nooo. Don't wanna. Verrah comfy here."

The sight of him curled up against me, a peaceful expression across his face, made me sit still. I laid my head back onto the floor; the tile now slightly warmed under my body. Billy was fast asleep. 

I woke up half an hour later, finding myself still on the hallway floor. Cold and even more uncomfortable than I had been when I first woke up, I grumbled. Every muscle in my body was contorted or knotted eight ways to Sunday.

Billy was still sleeping quietly, clinging to me like I was a body pillow or a very flexible lover. I couldn't help what it did to me. I felt his chest filling and emptying with breath, and everywhere we touched was overheated with combined body warmth. 

Two breaths away from running my fingers through his hair—I had my hand lifted and nearly there—and then I lightly smoothed a fingertip over one of his eyebrows, heart in my throat. I moved the same fingertip down the side of his cheek.

He stirred. I moved my hand so quickly that I hoped he hadn't noticed. He opened his eyes slowly, hands going to the tile, brushing my wrists and the leather bands around them. He squinted around the hall, then at me, stiffening a bit.

"Think I can stand now," he said, voice hoarse, and then he cleared his throat, pushing off me. I was wrinkled and hot where he had lain. I stifled the mad urge to bring him back down on me. 

Sort of wished I had moved to touch him sooner. Guess I could do it whenever I wanted, but not in a slow, exploratory type way. Bugger. And then I felt like a complete pervert, wanting to touch him when he wasn't aware of it.

I followed, leagues steadier on my feet than before, and filed into the kitchen behind him. He started up water for tea, and I fell into one of the sturdy chairs round the table, laying my head down on folded arms.

He set down two steaming mugs. I didn't think twice about him making my tea the way I liked. We both knew each other's preferences along those lines. I looked over to see him messing with the camera.

"Billy, goddamn. Not that thing this early, please," I mumbled, taking a long, hot swallow of tea.

"No, it's out of a battery power anyway," he said, motioning with his hand.

"Ah." I paused. "Why?"

"We left it running in the hall last night. You know, on that coat stand thing when we put it down after we got in."

I blinked.

"Trying to see if we did anything funny in the hall," he said, chuckling.

Well, it wasn't possible that the tape had that much room on it, to include this morning, was it? Nah. After a few moments, with the light whirring of the tape in the background, Billy shrugged and turned it off. My pulse thumped in an ugly sort of way.

"S'pose not, then," he said.

I'm too old for this excitement!

"You going to sleep?" I asked him once my mug was empty, feeling much better with the warm liquid in my belly and the minutes dragging my hangover slowly away. The milky day outside was capped with a cloud-washed gray sky, pregnant with the promise of rain. It made me drowsy, but in a relaxing sort of way. And just as I asked him that and looked towards the window, flecks of rain began to fall against the glass.

Probably should've turned on the lights, because it was very dim in the room, but the idea of the brightness was sort of a turnoff.

"Mm," he said, in an affirmative way. "It's a lazy day and my head's still kind of light."

"I might, too, in a bit. Want to clean up the lounge first."

"You sure? I'll help."

"Nah. I've got it covered."

"If you say so," he said, smiling, and palmed the camera. He stood, circled the table, and put a hand on my shoulder, running it along the length of my shoulder blades as he went round the back of my chair.

When he was gone, I exhaled. I let the memory of his cheekbone and jaw under my fingertip come back, finally, now that I didn't have to worry about the evidence of it betraying me. One more second, and I would've sunk my palm and fingers up through the hair starting at his temple, and I would've tingled, because his soft hairs would've made the sensitive skin on my palm do just that. And maybe I could've brought my thumb up on his bottom lip, and felt his damp breath and the cushy fullness there.

I brought that train of thought to a screeching halt with an inhale and a long blink. Ran my hands back through my already messy hair, and remembered that I was going to clean the living room.

 

One long cleaning session—we've recycled enough glass to solve the problem of what the world's next resource is going to be once petrol has run out, by the way, and no need to thanks us, really—and a shower and change of clothes later, and I still can't get away from the sticky situation that happened in the hallway this morning.

I mean, what was I thinking? I wasn't thinking, I suppose, and that's the problem. I just…my hand just…and then there was how warm it was, and how warm it got, and a second later, and it just kept…kept going! Felt so right. Felt so fucking good. God, I hate myself. I'm such a smarmy git. I mean, really! Think about it. Doesn't it make you want to hate me? Doesn't it just?

He's sleeping, looking like a goddamn cherub in that bed, and I want to be under those sheets with him. I want to feel his whole body with my fingertips; just the same way I did with them this morning, because he feels particularly fantastic against the pads of my fingers.

Fuck. What am I going to do? I've created a monster, letting myself think this way. It's only going to get worse. I can only drink it away so many times.

We've got a half a year left here. I've got a great friendship that I want to last for years after that, and I can't ruin it just because of this. 

But it keeps looping in my head, and this isolation makes it even more possible, and my twenty-four-hour-a-day dose of Boyd, and—none of it helps the matter. But I'm not the first person on the planet to be in this situation, am I? I've got to get over it. There isn't a choice to make, really. 

 

When I finally crawled into bed that night, I was exhausted. I didn't fall asleep for hours after. Every change in his breathing, every tiny shift in his body on the other side of the bed, and I would go very still, and hold my breath listening, and then try to put my attention on something else.

 

It's very easy to be normal again under the bright lights of the indoor set. It's especially easy when we're acting, because I don't think of anything but Rings when I'm in that mindset. When I'm Merry, well—it's very simple and narrow and all predictable edges. 

And having the crew to joke with is great, and makes me feel more like myself. Lots of people around definitely helps. Because we can be DomBillyMonaBoyd with them, and that's something we've always been good at. Even when we're in the make-up room, getting the wigs, ears, and feet taken off, I'm fine. We're working. We're doing our thing. 

It's the car ride home that's the problem. Mm. Yeah. It's wondering why he turned down an invitation to dinner at one of the crew manager's houses when I was all set to accept, thinking he might be getting tired of just hanging out with me. 

It's rationalizing that I'm overanalyzing. It's that I might just need to get drunk again to fight off this helpless, weak feeling of being into someone who will never, ever be into me back and that I can't even tell anyone, much less him, or it would ruin a lot of things in my life.

 

"It's a welt, I'm telling you," Billy insisted, shirt around his collarbone as he insisted showing me a huge bruise he'd gotten from one of the Treebeard harnesses that day.

"It's a bruise," I replied, eyes glued to his stomach, inches below the red mark he was showing me.

"Welt."

"Bruise, Billy."

"Welt, Dommie."

"Is that why you didn't want to go to dinner?"

"No," he said, chuckling and flopping on the couch. He sat up, shrugged off his leather jacket, ran a hand through his spiky hair to mess it up even further, and then relaxed again. "Tired."

"We sat in a tree all day," I prodded. "How can you be tired?"

He took our camera out of his bag and flicked it on, turning it around the room, and eventually leaving it on me. The black, almost insect-like ogle of the lens panned leeringly down my body. I hooked my thumbs in my pockets, striking a pose.

"Finally, you're doing something. When people watch this video, they're going to think that you're very boring, Dom."

"And they're going to think you're completely mad. At least there's a future in there for me."

He giggled and put the camera down, but didn't turn it off. I went over to the couch and flipped it off myself. Just before I could sit down, he laid down, sprawling the entire length of the couch, and stuffed a pillow under his head.

I sat on his legs, quite casually, and he squeaked and kicked at me.

"Oi!"

"Mm?"

"Ge'off."

"You can't claim the whole couch! And the floor's cold."

"Wanker. Lay down."

Yes, sir. Like I was going to complain. I laid down next to him, putting my back to his front, and fished around for the television remote that was on the rug just near us. Needed something to distract me from the warmth of his body.

I flicked the television on, settled on a movie channel, and tucked the remote to my chest, watching the program silently. He moved around a bit, readjusted where he had his arms, and finally draped one forearm lightly around my waist. I closed my eyes, feeling his face near the nape of my neck.

"Wake me in a bit," he whispered, his breath warm on my skin.

I made some tiny, near-silent noise of agreement, but I don't think he heard. I watched maybe half the movie before I realized I had no idea what it was about. Clicked off the telly, put the remote down, and sunk into the inky silence of the room. Listened to Billy's breathing and figured I might as well get him up so we could change and go to bed properly. (Go to bed properly. Ha.)

I rolled over slowly, tucking arms and legs close so I didn't squish him, and lay here staring at him in the dark for a while, sure that he was still asleep and couldn't see my face or position. I closed my eyes, inching closer to him, just—just a minute…I mean, I just wanted a second, like that, with the warmth, just before I woke him, just—

Fucking hell. Get off this couch, you stupid cunt.

I stood slowly, rubbed my eyes with the heel of either of my palms, and turned back towards the couch.

"Billy," I said. "Billy. Billy!"

"Mm?" he murmured, rolling over.

"Get into bed, man, c'mon, it's late."

Together we walked upstairs, bumping shoulders, poking sides, all groggy and half-asleep. I tossed a t-shirt that was his from my side of the room, and it hit him square in the chest. The curtains were open and just before I went to shut them, the moonlight coming in from outside distracted me. 

It was light and cool near the window, where the drizzled-on world outside was illuminated by the pale glow. And, following the path of it, my eyes found Billy, getting undressed. He shrugged off his button-down shirt, slipped the t-shirt over in its place. Undid his belt, the zipper, and let the pants fall, replacing them with a pair of shorts. Ran a hand through his hair, and then disappeared to use the bathroom.

A twinge, like a plucked guitar string, hummed down my body and settled heavily between my legs. I exhaled slowly and changed into pyjamas, so numb that I was sensitive all over.

He came back and we went to bed in silence, because we never really talked much when we were tired and halfway to sleep, besides. 

 

On our fifth day at South Island, we had dinner—champagne and all—on the patio on the back porch of the house. Figured we wouldn't much want to cook the last night or two, because of all the packing we'd have to do, so the celebration of our week landed on this night.

We were talking about dancing skills, which was kind of funny. And the bubbles in the champagne made my sinuses feel hollow and made me very giddy. He kept insisting that he could dance much better than I could, and that "club" dancing didn't count, because that was just writhing and hip-shaking and simulated sex, and real dancing was stuff like slow-dancing and Latin dancing and the like.

I challenged him to Tango or Mambo and prove it, silently plotting to use it for blackmail later, but he insisted that there was a grace to slow-dancing that was at the core of all real dancing. I scoffed. So he ran inside, got our little stereo, and waggled my CD of the music I usually do my Yoga to. It was full of slow, lazy music, people singing in light, pretty voices—stuff that helps me to calm down.

"That's mine," I said, popping up.

"'Course it's yours," he said. "Now come here."

"Why?"

"Can't slow dance with myself. I'll show you a thing or two. Have a little culture."

Ooh dear me.

He turned the stereo on and messed with it for a while, until he found the song he wanted, I guessed. I was getting impatient, because surely the damned stereo didn't take a brain surgeon to work it, and even though it was a clear, warm night, I didn't feel like standing up forever—

"There we go," he breathed.

He came over and stood in front of me. "Now. Pretend I'm an attractive woman."

"I'd much rather not, thanks," I said, laughing and keeping my arms folded.

"Then you're dancing with a bloke, my friend," he declared, taking my arms and putting them at my sides. I grinned and said nothing to that, letting him shift me.

"Left hand here. Right hand here. S'posta keep your feet just slightly between and to the side of mine, just direction wise—yah, like that. This is sort of formal, but…"

I was beyond hearing just exactly what he was saying. I was too obsessed with the way he put me, one hand lightly clasping my left and the other one around the small of my back. Through his simple button-down shirt and jeans, he felt perfect. 

There was a light piano-type tinkling coming from the stereo, and he moved us into it, careful shifts of his feet and upper body guiding the rhythm. He was fairly good at it, and I wondered briefly if it was Scottish thing, to learn dancing, or whether he'd picked it up in the theatre.

The music trickled down my spine. It was the most simple and beautiful combination of instruments; a lazy, rolling drum beat so subtle that I wasn't quite sure if it was a drumbeat or something softer, setting up the background. Layered on top of that was a soft trilling trickle of the cymbal, following just a beat later in rhythm to the drum. And then there was the flitter of the piano, higher notes, wandering along together but separate from the drum and cymbal.

And then a woman's voice began singing; this wonderfully multi-range voice, with a husky edge to it, but very pretty and obviously female. She hit the range right between alto and soprano, which is a hard place to maintain a singing voice, and wavered into both ranges easily and without faltering. 

She was singing as if she was right behind you, whispering lightly in your ear, wanting to tell you something very important. And her voice was just pretty enough to be pleasing and make you want to listen, but not so amazing that it distracted you from the music and the lyrics, which were just as important to the whole as her voice was. 

And it was a love song. A very nice love song; not too sappy, not too vague. A little poetic. A little rustic. And very much not on my Yoga CD. This isn't my Yoga CD, I thought. But I was too distracted to take the train of thought any farther.

"Come away with me in the night… Come away with me, and I will write you a song…"

Billy's hand on my back slipped higher, and he brought us just a little closer together. But I was distracted again by the song, wondering what in the hell had happened to my CD, wondering why we were slow-dancing on a patio in New Zealand, and how in the world was I going to act normal after we stopped?

But there was something grounding to the song. The background music never changed, not even when the woman took her voice higher or sung just slightly faster. It was a constant and it kept me on track.

Billy's other hand let my hand go; it searched around between the crook of my elbow and my side and I felt it slip around my back to join his other hand. And we were together suddenly; my face falling against his shoulder and his on mine, our chests lightly brushing, his hair on my cheek, his neck against my jaw.

"Come away with me on a bus…"

Playful and raised on the word "bus," as if joking, as if knowing how childish it sounded, how silly the image must be. But loving. And somehow making sense; making sense that it was crazy and silly and that love is just like that, and it doesn't matter what you do, as long as you can have that person next to you.

"Come away where they can't tempt us with their lies…"

Now that takes you away from the childishness, and makes you an adult again, reminding you of the harsh reality of the world. You can't take the bus everywhere. But maybe you can take the bus and get away from them. Get away from them. Isolation. Oh.

"I want to walk with you on a cloudy day, in fields where the yellow grass grows knee-high. So won't you try to come…"

A hint of the child again, but not really: more being in the country than anything else. Being away from the everyday and finding joy in something so simple as tall grass. You get an image of swinging, laced hands, of summer clothes, of warmth, of careless pleasure.

I began to tingle from head to toe and I could barely squeeze a breath in or out of my lungs. He held me tighter with each lyric, so subtly that I didn't realize we were completely wrapped around each other once we reached that point. My left hand was around his back, my right near the base of his neck. I turned my face against his neck—daring to hope, daring to move, and daring to keep on.

"Come away with me and we'll kiss on a mountaintop… Come away with me and I'll never stop…loving you…"

Ah, now, that "kiss" was sort of like "bus," all high-pitched and playful and childish and silly. And just like that line, the second part made it mature and serious and adult-like again, bringing it back to the reality. But still loving. And the drum-cymbal-piano never stopped.

It was only when the line was finished that I picked up something changed in the way it sounded. And then I realized that it was because Billy had sung the lyric near my ear in time with the woman's voice. I closed my eyes again, rubbing my face into his neck, and shivering. Because the words "loving you" crawled around inside my ear nonstop, even when the lyric was left far behind.

His voice was sort of like hers, in that it was just between tenor and bass, in that spot that's hard to maintain, and the accent changed the vowels, but it was beautiful. I wanted to see his eyes. But I couldn't move. I felt his mouth move, and it was against my earlobe a second later.

The music went on moments longer than it had between the other verses. His hands sought higher on my back, rubbing just below my shoulder blades. I began to shake harder. I wrapped my hand lightly around the back of his neck, rubbing up into the hair there, and my other hand went higher on his back.

"And I want to wake up with the rain, falling on a tin roof, while I'm safe there in your arms…"

Again he sang the line, and I could feel his cheek move with the words this time, and his breath all soft and intentional in my ear. His eyelashes brushed my cheekbone. This lyric was slightly faster and sung at a higher octave, and it was tinged with just a little bit of emphasis, as if she was saying I'm almost through telling you, but listen, and then it immediately relaxed.

"So all I ask is for you…to come away with me in the night… Come away with me."

The lyrics and music tapered quickly into silence. And the rhythm, which we perfectly matched as we swayed, stopped as well. We came to our own halt a moment later, though I couldn't bring myself to let go. His face was still where it had been, lips against my ear, half his face brushing mine.

One of his hands broke free from my back, came between us, moving up my chest, and wrapping lightly around the apex of my neck and shoulder, then moved up to my chin, taking my jaw lightly in its hold. His cheek slipped over, and then I felt his mouth, and his puckered lips, softly touching the corner of my mouth. A chilly-hot drip went right down the center of my front. 

I closed my eyes again, and he moved a second time, pressing his mouth fully against mine. I wasn't thinking when I kissed back, only brimming with the sense of Billy's mouth. Deeper then—we're really kissing—and I tightened my hold on his back. He pulled away finally, lifted his head, and his eyes were dark and glossy because of the nighttime.

"Dom…"

Inhale. 

"That wasn't my CD." 

Exhale.

"I know."

"That…"

"It's yours now, though."

"Why?"

"I just gave it to you."

"Why?"

"The song's for you."

And all of this was on a different breath each, and something terrible and wonderful was flopping and writhing behind my ribs—my gushy heart—trying to tell me I should be panicking or doing something to mark this thing happening. Because the moon should've just taken a dive out of the sky, or some such other Earth-moving insanity, because this is—

But he kept on smiling, kept on staring, kept on holding, and I didn't know whether to die or burst into tears. Or go get drunk. (Always an option, you know.)

I knew what he meant. But the knowing and the believing-understanding are two different things, and apparently my brain synapses weren't firing anymore. He disentangled us, still smiling, and picked up our fluted glasses from the table, slipping one into my hand. Numb, I took it.

He clinked them lightly together and then took a sip. "To our vacation."

I tipped back the whole thing in one swallow and then collapsed into the wicker chair behind me. His smiled wavered slightly as he refilled my glass, but I didn't know that then because he wasn't facing me.

"If my gift isn't sitting well with you, we can move past it. But I just thought. Well. Felt right tonight. Thought you had the right to know. We won't get a chance to do this sort of thing again for a while, I expect."

My head was the mental equivalent of a bumper-car track. Something like: holding, dancing, Billy, loves me, what, makes no sense, bloody champagne, what's he talking about, I'm supposed to be the one who's, well, that's, just, he's so handsome in that shirt, and I can't even believe, what a lovely song, for me?

He handed my glass back to me, something of the romantic seriousness ebbing in his face. And I recognized my Billy there, suddenly, and felt my heart lurch in my chest.

"Billy," I said, putting the champagne down.

"Yes?"

"I… My head's gone to complete mush. Can we sit still for a moment?"

He nodded and then walked over to the stereo, flicking buttons here and there. He came back with something dark and square in his hands and gave it to me. It was a videotape, one of those tiny ones that goes inside a bigger one for viewing. I looked over sharply, seeing for the first time our video camera just perched under the stereo. My forehead crinkled up in thought. So that's what took so long.

"I had to. But you can do with it what you like," he said. 

I folded it back onto my lap.

"I've watched you through that ruddy thing since we got here. Stared at you through the view-finder the way I couldn't on a normal day."

He had. Why hadn't I seen the connection before?

"You have no idea, do you?"

I looked up at him. I shook my head.

"Dominic, please; say something. I'm prepared for the worst, you know. I'm a grown man and the chances of this turning out the way it has in my head for weeks are a wee bit slim—"

"William Boyd. Calm it for half a minute, yeah? You're starting to sound like me."

He smiled.

"I must've done something," I said quietly, "for you to think there was a chance at all that this night would come out like you wanted."

His smile flagged again, but he didn't pause. "It was the morning after we got knackered. When I said there was nothing on the tape…?"

My stomach heaved in embarrassment. "Oh, bloody hell."

"I was watching it," he said, laughing a little, "and there you were, touching my face with that look in your eye, and I just…I thought, Well, lookit that, then."

"God's sake. I'm never going to live that down," I said, though it was in good humor, and a smile teased my lips up.

There was a silence.

"That was one hell of a song," I said, all breathy again, pulse still pounding, and I looked up at him. "What is it called?"

"Come Away with Me. Norah Jones."

"For me."

"For you," he replied, smiling.

I inched my wicker chair closer to his until our knees were touching. With the air of probably a schoolboy, I put my hands on either side of his neck, leaned forward, and kissed him full on his beautiful mouth. Fuck hesitation, I thought. I've wanted to do this for months.

I pulled back a little, threaded my fingertips up against the back of his neck, my thumbs near where his pulse pounded, and kissed him again, parting my lips, letting my tongue tease out softly between them. And then I stopped, moved away to look at him, and kissed just above his upper lip and under his nose. He closed his eyes.

"Is that a…a, ehm, 'yes,' or a 'You're just a good kisser, Billy,' or ehm, a 'The feeling's mutual, mate,' sort of…?"

I laughed as he rambled; his eyes shut, looking comical. Kissed him again, playfully, with a loud smack.

"I always was the smart one."

He grinned, opened his eyes, and punched me in the arm. "The mood! The mood's just run out the door, oh—look at it go…speedy little devil, innit? Thank you, Mister Monaghan."

I reached up, and ran my hand through his hair, drew his face close again. God, how long I've wanted to do that. 

"Don't need mood," I said, grinning again. "You've got me."

 

For some reason, the noise that most stuck with me from that night was the noise the sliding glass door made when he closed it behind us on our way back inside. It was the signal of the start of the night ahead of us, I guess, and an image, too, because of the way he was silhouetted by the porch lights beyond the door, his hands going for my waist, his hair all a mess.

"Christ, Dom," he sighed, wrapping his arms around my back and kissing me, the tip of his tongue doing insanely wonderful things to the inside of my upper lip. I sighed in reply, arousal lodging itself hard and knotted in my belly. 

We got as far as the living room rug before the distraction of kissing each other made a further journey impossible. Marathon-kissing Billy was quite fun; shifting my mouth and tongue all around his and seeing how long we could go without needing breath or to swipe the moisture that gathered there away. After each break, he would grin at me, looking like a boy, and it would melt my insides just a little more, when he moved in to resume, his eyelids falling really slowly back down.

I folded us gradually down on the rug, and his fingers dug into my shoulders, pulling me on top of him. There was an undercurrent of: this is strange, us doing this; never pictured us in this particular situation, and shouldn't it be awkward? And I had the thought that, if I really started thinking about just how nervous or odd I should feel, that I would start to feel that way. So I chose to ignore that road.

I suckled the hollow of his throat lightly, flatly amazed at how good it looked to me when he tilted his head back, eyelids fluttering, nostrils trembling with unsteady breathing. And I was shaking a little, myself, because deep down I was nervous, and highly aroused, and realizing that I had never stopped to question what all this meant for us in terms of the future.

But all the thinking stopped when he opened his eyes, and ran his fingers through my hair, and with his other hand started to flick open the buttons on my shirt. The focused look in his eyes as he tackled each tiny circle, the lovely blush on his neck and forehead, and his fingers just lightly cupping my ear—oh, god, I adore him so fucking much.

"You're shaking," he whispered, smiling.

"I…ah, yeah…"

Couldn't remember the last time that just lying on top of someone made me tremble like this. It was kind of annoying, really, in that it made me self-conscious against all odds; because it was the real sort of trembling; the kind you don't notice unless you're really still…or unless someone is holding you.

I laughed a little when he shifted around and pushed my shirt back off my shoulders. He looked at me for a long moment, his palms skimming my upper arms and shoulders, and I knew he was feeling for the trembling as well as feeling my skin.

Closed my eyes when his roaming fingertips searched down my front, brushing my nipples, and tracing the outline of my torso, then playing along the waistline of my pants in the most teasing way. He was smiling in the goofiest way. I laughed again, feeling silly; but it was like the silly love in the song, all sticky warm and nice.

"Do you feel weird?" he asked, working feather-soft circles with his fingers up and down my sides.

"Nnn…well. If by weird you mean 'incredibly turned on.'"

"Good answer."

I chuckled; took a long breath, and rubbed my face into his neck again, kissing there, and finally realizing I had free reign to take off his shirt, too. I did that slowly, savoring the process and its match-up with my running fantasy of doing it. I marveled at how slow all this was; how it seemed like we had forever to do it, how I didn't want to go any faster, because this was unspeakably fun; a gradual exploration.

He shrugged his shoulders to let the shirt fall off once I moved to take it off, then sat up to get it out from under him, then laid back down. He pulled me close again, and I sighed contentedly, rubbing my nose into his chest, and then kissing near his collarbone lightly. So I ran with that, kissing inch by inch, feeling the warmth on his skin flare and flush. His eyes stayed closed as I did this, and I paused near his nipple before covering it with my mouth, gently biting and then licking at it. His forehead crinkled up and he shifted anxiously. I grinned and did it again, claiming the victory when it got hard; and then I blew a cool stream of air over it, and he took a funny breath.

I kissed down the center of his chest slowly, pausing to deepen my efforts, my mouth parting, taking wide kiss-bites out of his chest, loving the way it felt to feel his lungs fill under my lips. His fingers were still lightly near my neck, moving with me as I moved ever lower. I kissed into his bellybutton and his hips jerked. I couldn't help but chuckle triumphantly, and he glared down at me, and then he chuckled, too.

"Add that to your database of knowledge about me," he said, his voice just a little more husky than normal.

Giving a "right-o" sort of nod, I cheekily drew my tongue around the indent, my free hand running up the length of his denim-covered leg and thigh to pause somewhere near his pelvis.

"Can I…?"

He nodded, watching me with glazed, dark eyes as I undid the button-and-zipper combo, trying hard not to react to my fingers brushing the obvious bulge there. Tried to look like a professional, sitting back to wriggle the cloth from his legs until it was tossed off towards the direction of the couch.

I laid back down over him, and he brought his knees up a little, putting me between his thighs, which was frighteningly intimate and made me hot all over, the light tap-tap-tap of his knees on either side of my legs. He reached down, fingers searching again around my belly, finding the button there, and repeated my performance, with a little help from me.

So we were lying there, in just boxers now, sort of sneaking looks at each other, and getting used to being close. His fingers put the slightest hint of pressure against my neck, and I instantly shifted higher so we could go on kissing. 

And, okay—kissing when that close and nearly naked? An entirely different brand of kissing, I'll tell you that. Maybe it was how his eyes got really dark, or how the laugh lines around his mouth seemed to deepen, but even if it wasn't for the hot, hard press of him against my thigh—it was very obvious how tense he was.

The kissing sent a steady trickle of hot down between my legs, and less progressively down my whole body, which starting the tingling, and made the shaking happen again. And it was altogether delicious, the way every little hair on my body seemed to pay attention to what my lips were doing.

And when his tongue started to swivel and do laps around my mouth, and his knees began to press against the back of my hips to push us together, well. That's…that's very nice…that's…ooh…

I put my elbows on either side of his head against the floor, fingers playing with his hair, my mouth and his mouth becoming one messy organ. His fingers slip-slid down my back, sinking into the waistband of my boxers, and once they got back my lower back, tripped some wire of sensation on my skin, because just as they neared the rise of my backside, I had to stop kissing him and force my legs to stay still.

We stayed close, ever ready to start kissing again, and I could feel his breath on my mouth, feel the light instability in him. He wrapped his fingers slowly downward, cupping either half of my backside, and pressing up at the same time, rubbing our pelvises together. A jerking feeling went down the length of my erection, and I shuddered, eyes closing. 

I exhaled carefully, one hand pushing on the floor near his head, lifting my upper body up and off him. Holding myself up that way, I rocked into him, the squeeze of his fingers sending shivering riffs of feeling down my thighs. And he was rock-hard and pulsing and cloth-covered and oh, yes.

"Billy…"

"Mmm…?"

"Yeah."

And only that would make sense to us.

I started to move normally, in a slow rolling grind between his legs, bent on driving us crazy, but it felt so good to rub and rub and tease and feel the blood flooding my erection slowly. I leaned down over him, kissing down the exposed side of his throat, licking at his earlobe before biting it gently. 

His hands pushed the cloth down off my waist and it never registered to feel different because I was now completely naked and between his thighs and hard as bloody hell. I felt the bobbing length of my arousal brush his belly, and saw the shiver go through him. Responding to that, I moved and tugged his boxers from his hips, frozen briefly on the sight of his naked body in the dim light of the room.

Rubbed my hand along his pelvis and stomach, tongue between my teeth in thought as I stroked his collarbone and then turned back down, teasing the sensitive spots all around his flushed arousal before letting my fingers pass over it. 

"Dom," he sighed, a pleading edge to it.

"Mm?"

"Please."

"Like that?" I dipped my hand lower, caught him between my thumb and other fingers, and rubbed up once, the silky-hard feel of him flooding my body with heat. Between us, my erection bumped his, and I took hold of it, rubbing the two flared, pink lengths of flesh together.

His chest and stomach started to change under the shift in breathing. I pressed us together at a friction-filled angle, and laid down on him slowly, pinning us together. Kissing him, I thrust back and forth, rubbing us, sandwiched between our respective stomachs.

His mouth touched my ear, and he was trembling a little as he wrapped his calves around the back of my thighs. Desperately wanting to feel the tension get tighter, I went on that way, minutes on end, flushing heavily as I felt the sticky evidence of increasing arousal smearing between us, making it slippery there.

The heat came off his cheeks, where I pressed my face, and I watched the muscles in his neck cord up and then relax.

"Dom…"

"Uhnm," I groaned, his fingertips passing along my arched, tense shoulders.

"Harder," he drawled against my ear, and the Scottish lilt to those r's trickled down my side like liquid sex. I think I moaned, just from that.

Hot and damp, I slid my hand between us, fixing the angle at which we were squished together, and then lightly wrapped my hand around us both. I wanted to come like this, working together, feeling his thighs squeeze my hips. And it went on forever that way, thrusting-thrusting-squeezing. His funny breathing and catches in his throat became low whimpers—and if you could have an accent while whimpering, well, Billy had that—and I wanted to die from how good it felt.

I barely realized I was going to come, so wrapped up in his pleasure that I was. His hands squeezed my sides, legs spread and tangled with mine and yet somehow I could feel their grip. He started to move under me, just a little frantic as I pumped him inside the tunnel of my fist.

"Dom!"

"Oh, God."

"…yeah…"

"Just…Billy…God…"

I lay down against him again, still managing to keep my wrist rolling, and caught his mouth under mine. And then I came, the feeling rushing hard and wet and sudden between us, spurting against his stomach five or six times. I shuddered, kissed him, shuddered again, still working my hand hard. I let it happen without trying to put it off, because I wanted to be fully aware when he came; I wanted to watch.

And watch I did. The lines all around his face deeper were cinched with tension. He was flushed and distracted and engrossed and beautiful, fingers moving aimlessly, hips grinding hard upwards. And then his mouth parted slowly, his stomach rose sharply, and his expression dissolved into pleasure along with a gradual moan that stuttered from his mouth when it washed over him.

I went on until he started to go soft. And then the urge to close my eyes and never move came over me; maybe because I was a little lethargic, but also because the moment was so still and hot and perfect that it seemed sacrilegious to disturb it.

And I was still shaking. I think it was sort of how he made me feel: unstable. I think that silly, walking-in-tall-grass, taking-the-bus-to-isolation, unstable type love is just the kind of love I always wondered about finding.

 

"Did you terrorize the locals?" Elijah asked, hopping up onto my couch.

I grinned, looked over at Billy, who sat with his legs over my knees, reading the paper and drinking tea. We had been back in Wellington for a day.

"Not really," I admitted, shrugging, and playing with the video camera on my lap.

"Got smashed and had fun, at least," he insisted, looking incredulous about preserving my honor as a well-known drunkard.

"Oh, well, of course, all that," I said, nodding, and giving an evasive smile.

"You going to give that back to Orli?" he asked, motioning to the camera.

"Yeah," Billy said, laughing at me.

"So are we going to have a big old movie theatre viewing of the tape, then?"

"Probably not, Lijah dear," I said, and Billy laughed harder.

He looked between us, sensitive to the looks we had been sharing ever since he walked into the trailer. "Guys. What happened this week?"

"Nothing!" I insisted, Billy's laughter starting up mine.

"Guys!"

"You're awfully nosy, Wood."

"You're really not going to tell? That must be one hell of a tape…"

I looked at Billy. "Maybe."

"Perhaps it'll make the DVD cut," Billy said, deadpanned and serious over the rim of his tea mug.

I cracked up laughing again.

"Oh, fine. Seriously, what did you do when you weren't shooting?"

I shrugged, smiling. "Like I said: nothing much."

"We just played house, is all," Billy said, burying his nose in the paper.

Elijah fixed me with a look. Then his jaw dropped. I patted Billy's legs in an affectionate sort of way and gave a single eyebrow waggle at Elijah, who ticked his gaze to Billy, as if appealing for the truth.

"Never played house before, Elijah?" he said, lowering the paper, and giving an "oh, poor little boy" type of tsk-tsk and headshake that made Elijah regain some of his composure.

"He's quite young, Bill," I explained logically, giving just as grave a nod.

"Oh, I know. Shame, innit?" Billy answered, commiserating, and looked at Elijah.

I offered the camera to Elijah. "You should take it to Sean's."

He glared at me. And then he swiped the camera and stomped out of the trailer, looking determined. Billy snorted and then collapsed laughing behind his paper. I laid back.

"If Orli only knew what his camera's seen…"

"Luckily, he never will," he said.

"Well, of course. He doesn't have the tapes."

There was a very icky silence during which Billy stared at me.

"You took the last tape out of the camera, right?"

"…I was supposed to do that?"

"Dom…"

"I thought you did!"

"I told you to, last night, after we—"

He dropped his paper and put his mug aside. I looked at him, pained.

"Oh, fuck."

We shared another look and then made a mad dash for the trailer door, calling Elijah's name.


End file.
